Monday, April 13, 2009

The basic requirement of the players in the demo is to destroy a number of targets in a space zone; each target leading to the next in a pathway to completion. The players will also be interested in obtaining score for what they achieve in order to differentiate themselves from their competition and to aim for candy in the form of a first place position showcased on the website.

We can submit the score to MySQL via a HTTP post to a PHP page from within the game. Preferably these players will register themselves with a username and password in order for the PHP to autheticate and process the MySQL query online; otherwise guest accounts could be generated with limited features; further submission details can be discussed later.

The score sprite tile shown is set up in the demo_assets.xml file to store each figure in an animation element. Using the necessary actions and triggers, we can spawn the score entity at the position of the destroyed target with a matching score property. The score entity should gradually rise upwards to move out of any distracting explosions without being to difficult to read; before disappearing after rougly 3 seconds, or how ever long is best. The score can be added to the player's total score since the demo's start; and added to their total score online.

The rating used to determine the best player could be calculated by the amount of score earned divided by the amount of games played. In other words; the less games played with higher scores, the better; making it impossible to cheat the rankings by eliminating an easy target over and over again in repeated new games.